Some electronic device manufacturing processes may use large quantities of reagents and/or other materials, and some of these reagents may be harmful and/or hazardous if released to the atmosphere. It is known to abate harmful or otherwise hazardous regions and reagent byproducts through the use of abatement systems which convert the reagents or their byproducts into less harmful and/or less hazardous compounds. While the abatement of these reagents and their byproducts may address the issue of the harmful and/or hazardous nature of the reagents/byproducts, it does not address the fact that a significant quantity of expensive reagents may eventually be wasted when the reagents pass unused through a process chamber.
Other materials, which although they may not be harmful or hazardous, still represent a large cost for electronic device manufacturing systems.
It is desirable therefore to develop methods and apparatus which would reduce the amount of reagents and/or other materials which are required to be produced and/or purchased for use in electronic device manufacturing processes.